Life after the internet

[medusa]

I'm sure that there are plenty of people who choose not to have a computer or access the internet in any way, but their lives are still not unaffected by computers and the internet.

 

If you buy anything, it has been constructed, transported, printed or affected some other way by things connected to the internet, or the shop from which you bought it did their stock control using a computer connected to the internet.

 

The only way that you could ever say that you are living without the internet is if you are entirely self sufficient (including only planting seeds collected from previous years' crops) and you make everything you need from trees/animals/whatever around you because everything new will have been affected by the net in some way.

[woodmally]

Life before the internet has some fascinating posts, but just supposing some great catastrophe killed it, cyber terrorism perhaps.

 

Could we live without it now? Libraries for instance don't have anything like the range and number of books they once had.

 

How hard would it be for people to find out what is happening in the world, or even their own small corner. Would the necessary skills be available in, for example, real proper journalism.

 

Could you live without it, having known it?

 

How could I cope I'd have no Sheffield Forum to tell me why the police cars were speeding up the road or where I can spot the police helicopter. I would also not know where to get body bags from if I was ever in Meadowhall.

[Chelle-82]

As others have said, doctors would have no access to your records without computers these days.

 

Ditto libraries would find organising their books and actually knowing where they were so you could read or borrow them really hard without technology, and ordering any book that they didn't happen to have from another library would have to go back to posting a slip to the British Library.

 

Communication would go back to snail mail speed for the most part, and in these days of electronic newspapers being far more prevalent than hard copy and therefore printing presses having been mothballed, there would be a huge vacuum of available information on pretty much any news-worthy subject in the following months as the thousands of type-setting machines needed were manufactured.

 

Almost every manufacturing process either uses computers which are linked into control networks to run the process or they are ordered, invoiced and financed using the internet, so they would also grind to a halt while retro-fitting of mechanical controllers and/or human controllers were trained.

 

Everybody who is used to doing their banking online would suddenly find that there were insufficient bank branches to return to doing all of their banking by visiting a branch, and the banks would find that they simply didn't have enough staff to do all of the processing that is currently done by a vast network of machines.

 

Basically, if the internet was to fall over and not return there would be a fundamental change to every aspect of our lives and much of it would be a very great challenge, even if we were lucky enough to not need a doctor who knows our medical history and medication.

 

All very good points Medusa, but the question was could you LIVE without it.

 

Yes the librarians would have to organise the books manually like they used to, yes we would have to wait a little longer for our mail, go back to queuing at the bank, buy our food stuff from the local butchers/grocery shop/farm shop/fish mongers. A little less luxury than what we have been used too, granted!

 

I look at some tribal villages where there is no internet, how do they survive?

 

Yes in the modern world we REQIURE what we have become accustomed too, but I honestly think we could survive. How can something that was only created less than 30yrs ago wipe us all out!

 

We'd survive, because we as humans have the capability to move forward, create new ways of living. We can and have accomplished so much in our short existence on this planet and we did much of it before the internet even popped up on our screens.

 

The desire to live is etched in each and every single one of us, therefore surely we would be able live without it..

[Owethemnowt]

I've lost more stuff on a PC than I ever did in a desk drawer.

 

Note books don't get a virus, have pop-ups or crash. Also, after 20 years you can still turn a page and read it. Try opening an Amstrad.

 

The worst thing ever is the touch screen plus sun light. The real world equivalent is a page and fire, which is much less likely to meet.

 

Give me the Flintstone tools any time.

 

Yaba dabba doo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[JFKvsNixon]

I've lost more stuff on a PC than I ever did in a desk drawer.

 

Note books don't get a virus, have pop-ups or crash. Also, after 20 years you can still turn a page and read it. Try opening an Amstrad.

 

The worst thing ever is the touch screen plus sun light. The real world equivalent is a page and fire, which is much less likely to meet.

 

Give me the Flintstone tools any time.

 

Yaba dabba doo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Most decent ebook readers are fine in the sunlight.

[alchresearch]

I've lost more stuff on a PC than I ever did in a desk drawer.

 

Note books don't get a virus, have pop-ups or crash. Also, after 20 years you can still turn a page and read it. Try opening an Amstrad.

 

It all depends on how you look after things. I've never had a virus or pop ups. Crashes happen but I save work regularly. And there's a fully working Amstrad PCW under my desk and an Amstrad NC-100 in the drawer which is still used for auditing serial numbers of devices in my workplace.

[Cyclone]

It all depends on how you look after things. I've never had a virus or pop ups. Crashes happen but I save work regularly. And there's a fully working Amstrad PCW under my desk and an Amstrad NC-100 in the drawer which is still used for auditing serial numbers of devices in my workplace.

 

I've lost plenty of paperwork though, store it somewhere less than optimal for a decade and see how good it is when you come back for it.

Watch your old photos fade away, have to throw things out due to lack of storage space for all that dead wood pulp! Give me digital storage anyday, far safer and more convenient.

[hyper]

I've lost plenty of paperwork though, store it somewhere less than optimal for a decade and see how good it is when you come back for it.

Watch your old photos fade away, have to throw things out due to lack of storage space for all that dead wood pulp! Give me digital storage anyday, far safer and more convenient.

that reminds me.... I was speaking to someone who claimed to be in the IT industry and he reckoned all hard drives have only a guaranteed 3 year lifespan before they become temperamental/lose things etc. So my question (and it is a genuine question, not a challenge) is digital storage safe for ever? Most of my kids photos are stored digitally and I'm left wondering if I need to rewrite them to new media regularly.

[Cyclone]

Many HDD today come with long warranties, but they are all based on mean time between failure.

Always back up, never trust that a HDD won't fail.

So long as you have a good backup, and in the event of a failure you immediately replace the failed drive and do a restore, then digital storage is safe.

 

Personally I have multiple backups, including some data held in the cloud, and if I ever get my act together I will take one of the backup drives to my parents house and leave it there (in case a fire burns my house down).

[alchresearch]

So my question (and it is a genuine question, not a challenge) is digital storage safe for ever?

 

It depends on the technology and how its stored. I'm often given USB sticks to try and recover data after a failure - you know when you plug it in and Windows wants to format it?

 

Yet I've got floppy disks for my Beeb Micro and Spectrum and the Amstrad that still work.

 

I'm on a Spectrum FB group and some tapes are now 30 years old and struggling to load. Thankfully there was a wonderful preservation project a few years ago to save them.